The Most Peculiar Mademoiselle
by Morte Rouge
Summary: Beauty and the Beast is ostensibly from Belle's POV - so why is it that in the movie and even the musical, we get only glimpses of what's going on in her head?
1. Prologue: Il Était Une Fois

**I. PROLOGUE: _IL __É_TAIT UNE FOIS...**

_Once upon a time, there was a duke of France who had a beautiful daughter, named Marguerite. Marguerite was more beautiful than any maiden in France: her hair looked like liquid gold, and her eyes were hazel. But in addition to her beauty, Marguerite had a kind and loving heart. And so she was beloved by many._

_As a woman, Marguerite was expected to one day marry and become lady of a grand household, managing it as though she were the keeper of an inn, only with servants. Marguerite knew that, with servants, she would not have to sew or cook, clean or spin, so she easily neglected her training as a future wife and spent much of her time outside: talking to her father's serfs as they worked in the fields, or sitting at the base of a tree, her head bent over a book._

_By the time Marguerite was seventeen, she had many suitors for her hand: other dukes, counts, lord, and even some marquesses and earls. Yet Marguerite fell in love with a man who worked for her father: a hard-working carpenter who was as honest, as kind, and even as fond of reading as Marguerite, but who was much poorer than her. His name was Maurice._

_Marguerite knew that her father would never allow her to marry Maurice_—

"Why not, Papa?"

"Hmm?" The father dropped his "story voice" and bent his smile on the tiny, dark-haired girl curled up in his lap. "'Why not' what, _mignon_?"

The little girl frowned, tossing her head impatiently. "Why wouldn't her papa let her marry the carpenter, if she loved him?"

"Because the carpenter was poor," Maurice explained with a rueful smile. But his daughter was still unsatisfied.

"I don't understand," she told him. "All the stories you and Mama have told me say that when two people want to get married, it's because they are in love! And also the stories say that love is the most important thing in the whole wide world."

"It is. But Marguerite's papa thought that the 'most important thing in the whole wide world' was money." He looked down at his daughter's face, anticipating her next question. "Do you remember what Mama's house was like?"

The girl nodded eagerly. "Yes! It was always warm there. The food was tasty, and I had such pretty, colorful dresses." She glanced involuntarily at the plain brown wool she now wore, and thus never saw the quick hurt look in her father's eyes. "Whenever you tell me stories about castles, I think about when I was there."

"Well, all of those things—big houses and rich food and pretty dresses—cost a lot of money. If you don't have a lot of money, you have to live in a little house like ours."

"A little brown house."

"What?"

"Everything here is brown," the little girl told her father in a tone that meant it should be perfectly obvious. "The walls and floor and food and even our clothes. And brown," she informed him, "is not my favorite color. Blue is."

Her father chuckled. "Are you very unhappy living here with me, then? Shall I paint everything blue to please you?"

"No," she said firmly. "I am very happy, because I love you, Papa."

Her father blinked hard several times. "I love you, too. And the duke in the story loved his daughter very much, and he was already very rich, but what he wanted most for her was to marry a rich man so that together they would be twice as rich."

"Oh."

Maurice correctly interpreted his daughter's sudden dearth of questions as both understanding, and as license to proceed. So he did proceed.

_Marguerite knew that her father would never allow her to marry Maurice, so they were married secretly. They made plans to run away together, but Marguerite's father found out and became very angry. He banished the carpenter from his lands, and made sure no one ever found out about Marguerite's disobedience by marrying her off to a neighboring nobleman, after all._

_But the nobleman found out, anyways, because Marguerite eventually had a baby who looked just like her, as well as her true husband, Maurice._ (As usual, Maurice hurried through this part of the story. He didn't feel equal to actually explaining bigamy, or the offspring thereof, to a six-year-old.) _The nobleman was kind to the little girl, though he wished for children of his own, and Marguerite raised her daughter in relative happiness for some years before tragedy struck._

_A horrible plague swept the countryside, and the nobleman was taken ill almost immediately. He died within days of Marguerite, who also succumbed to the plague, having been terribly weakened by the stillbirth of her second husband's son. Marguerite's daughter was cast into the world by the nobleman's cruel mother. Fortunately, the little girl's true father, the carpenter Maurice, learned of his Marguerite's plight, and hastened to rescue and raise their daughter himself._

"And now," said Maurice, "it's time you were in bed."

Dutifully, the girl jumped from her father's lap and ran into her little brown bedroom, where she undid her wool frock and folded it neatly in a chest at the foot of her bed. But she soon came scampering into the room again, shivering in her shift—and so, as anxious to be near her father again as the fire into which he now gazed, lost in reverie. "Papa?"

Maurice started. "Yes?"

"Why don't you ever say 'the end' when you finish telling me this story?"

Maurice picked up his daughter and carried her to her bed. Tucking her in as best as he knew, he replied, "Because it's not finished yet. The little girl hasn't grown up. Someday _you_ will finish telling _me_ the story. Now go to sleep, Belle."


	2. Paris, 7 Years Later

**II. PARIS, 7 YEARS LATER**

The streets of the city, usually crowded with vendors' stalls, customers, and the merchants and such that gravitate into and about a city, were always positively packed at noon. Children, most of them boys and all of them hungry, swarmed the marketplace, some remaining to buy their noon meal, others going farther on their way home to eat.

One boy bade his friends farewell and all but ran down the street, which should not have been a difficult feat. He was small for his age—which was about twelve or thirteen—but his shirt bulged oddly at the front, giving his stomach a rigidly rectangular appearance, and bouncing around as he went.

He slowed with relief (and a big whoosh of breath) after perhaps five minutes, slumping in a doorway, and breathing so hard he could hardly knock loudly enough on the door. Fortunately, it flew open almost immediately, as though the girl who dragged him inside had been waiting for him.

"Lucien! Sit down. I tried making onion soup for the first time today. Tell me what you think." Belle, at the same age as Lucien, was a little taller than him; but there was no need for her to intimidate. The underfed boy gratefully sat down at the small, rickety kitchen table, barely remembering to remove the smuggled books from his blouse before he attacked the steaming bowl Belle pushed in front of him.

Belle hadn't had any soup herself yet, but her hunger was not for food. Ravenously she flipped through the first book, her eyes moving quickly over each page. "Division? Lucien, what is it?"

Her companion swallowed a mouthful of hot, tasty soup and leaned across the table to look at the page. "It's the opposite of multiplication. You sort of split one number into several groups and see how many are in each group. Like if you made four bowls of soup—" his grubby, thin face brightened at the prospect "—and separated them into two groups—say, one group for me and one group for you—we would both have two helpings." As if to illustrate, he wordlessly pushed his empty bowl across the table to Belle, who leapt up to refill it (because the sooner she did so, the sooner Lucien would keep talking, albeit often with his mouth full). "Only that's too easy for one lesson, M Leclerc says," Lucien continued when she returned, "so we have to use bigger numbers. Today we re-studied the multiplication tables to make it easier."

"How does that make it easier?" Belle asked bemusedly, studying the long-division diagram a moment longer before she flipped back to the multiplication tables.

"We-ell," Lucien hesitated, wondering how to phrase his little lesson, "what's seven times nine?"

"Sixty-three," Belle replied promptly.

"Right, so, if you _divided_ sixty-three by nine, you would get seven."

For a moment Belle's face was blank; then comprehension dawned. "Oh! And if four times five is twenty, then…then twenty divided by five is four?"

"Yes," Lucien approved, smiling into his intelligent friend's pretty face. "I'm just glad you got it so quickly, Belle, because this book I _definitely_ have to sneak back to the schoolhouse before M Leclerc misses it."

"I hope you don't get in trouble because of me!" Belle's hazel eyes were large with concern.

Lucien grinned mischievously. "I haven't yet. And I won't, ever. None of us like M Leclerc, you know, so I'm just glad that if I'm pulling a prank on him, it's to help _you_." Lucien's smile faltered just a little as his eyes met hers. "But Belle, why _don't_ you come to school? There are so few girls there, that M Leclerc doesn't make them sit to one side like most schools, and you could sit next to me…"

"You know I would love to go to school and sit next to you," Belle sighed. "Only I have to take care of the house while Papa is working."

Lucien knew that this was because Belle's mama was dead. He thought briefly about his own mama, who, like Belle, did the family chores and cooking while everyone was at school or at work. If his mama died, would Lucien have to take her place? He hated cleaning. And cooking looked like it was hot and messy work.

The fact that Belle was put in this position made Lucien uncomfortable—for Belle's sake, but uncomfortable nevertheless.

Fortunately, Belle's brow suddenly furrowed for a different reason. "Wasn't there a book of science before? The one with pictures of constellations and planets?"

"Um." Relieved at the subject change, Lucien tried to remember what his father had said about the recently-banned book. "Remember what it said about the sun? How all of the planets, including Earth, spin around it?"

"I remember," Belle mused. "And I remember my papa said that it's in the Bible that all of the planets go around the Earth, instead."

"So did my dad. Anyways, the man who wrote the book we were reading wasn't supposed to, or something, and he was punished—"

"Punished?" Belle, who had crossed the room to get some soup for herself, stopped, ladle suspended in midair. "Why? Just because he was wrong?"

"I suppose so," shrugged Lucien, to whom theology, science, and the clash thereof were really of little concern. "Well, anyways, that's why I don't have a science book this week. Besides, Belle, I know you don't care too much for math _or _science!"

"That's true," Belle admitted, blowing on her bowl of soup. "But Papa says that it's important to have at least a basic knowledge of everything—everything taught in school. So I try to understand those things as well. It's a_ little_ interesting, but not as interesting as a book of stories."

"What a coincidence!" Lucien cried dramatically. "Because _this_ book…" he pushed the second, larger tome towards her "…should interest you."

Swallowing a mouthful of soup, Belle opened the unlabeled leather volume and her eyes lit up. "A book of fairy tales! Lucien! I thought you said M Leclerc said they were nonsense!"

"He did," Lucien eagerly assured her, "but finally all of the mothers told him that we didn't like the stories he was making us read, you know, those horrible ones with morals at the end—"

"Those weren't morals!" cried Belle indignantly, shuddering at the memory. "Morals in stories should be things such as, be nice to people and they'll be nice to you, or—" her voice faltered as she thought about the mother she barely remembered "—or how love is more important than anything because home is with the people you love. Those horrible old stories were about children who were naughty and got eaten by bears, or fell down wells and drowned!"

Most of this little speech had gone over Lucien's fair head, but he seized on the last part with a schoolboy's fervor. "At any rate, we've been learning to read better, using books full of the tales our mamas told us. The books use bigger words than we're used to, but it's not so hard, because after all we know what happens."

Belle's face fell. "My mama used to read me these kinds of stories," she said softly, running a finger along the book's spine. "She would point to each word with her finger. That was how I learned to read." Her face brightened again; the cloud was gone and she turned the pages until she found the table of contents. "Lucien, will you read me this one? I've never heard of it before."

Lucien leaned over Belle's shoulder. "'Aladdin, or his Magic Lamp.' Belle? You've never heard this one before? My mama used to tell me this one every night. I think you'd like it." Using his vacated seat as a stool, he clambered up on the table and opened the book to the first page of the story. "_Il était une fois_," he winked, beginning with the French equivalent of _Once upon a time_, "There was a poor boy, a 'street rat,' who lived in the streets of Agrabah, a beautiful and op-u-lent city. His name—"

"A _what_ city?" Belle put her spoon down again.

Lucien, who had had to sound the word out the first time, pronounced it fairly better now. "Opulent."

"I don't know what that word means." Belle wrinkled her nose. "But it sounds like something smelly, don't you think?"

Lucien didn't know _what_ he thought it sounded like, but it didn't matter because Belle was still talking. "Papa says there's a kind of book that has pages full of words and what they mean, instead of stories. It's called a 'dictionary.' To improve your diction." Belle giggled. "Can you imagine having a book like that? Then we'd know what 'opulent' means."

"I'd look for 'opulent,' myself," grinned Lucien, sliding a third, small green book from his pocket, "but this dictionary has your name on it."

"Oh!" Belle took the proffered dictionary and opened it to the inside cover, where an untidy hand had scrawled, "To Belle, from Lucien."

"…you're not angry that I wrote in a book, again, are you?" Lucien ventured at last, unnerved by Belle's silence.

He was even further unnerved, but also rather happy, when Belle flung herself at Lucien, hugging him tightly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I know usually I would be," she laughed, "but I'm not, because this is the most wonderful gift in the world, and now I will always remember that my friend gave it to me, even when I'm old and gray." Belle cocked her head. "Does that saying mean my hair will be gray, or my skin?"

"Uh," Lucien said intelligently. "I doubt that's a question the dictionary can answer, but you _can_ see what 'opulent' means now."

For answer, Belle turned the pages of the dictionary reverently, until she got to the end of the Os, and read. "Oh!" she said, soon. "It doesn't have anything to do with smell, at all. Opulent means 'rich, luxurious or plentiful.' It doesn't sound very rich, does it?"

"Not really."

"That's so sad. The boy in the story is poor, but he lives in a very rich city. I suppose the mayor of the city is a very rich and cruel man."

Lucien smiled at this prediction. "There is no mayor. Agrabah is the capital city of…um, I don't think the story says. But the sultan, the ruler of the country, lives in Agrabah, and he's not evil at all." Picking up the book of tales again, he read to his rapt listener, "His name was Aladdin. Aladdin was a clever and witty young man, though he never went to school, and he had to steal his food under the noses of royal guards—with the help of his best friend, a monkey called Abu. But Aladdin felt that he had been destined for much more than the life he was living…"


	3. A Strange Ache

**Note: I adjusted Belle and Lucien's ages from twelve to thirteen. Bear with me; by definition, fanfiction is subject to these kinds of modifications, especially as I'm finding it very difficult to bridge certain year gaps in my story. And I did change, as well, the city in which Belle and her father "currently" live from Marseille to Paris…for the sake of something that'll be slipped in, in a few chapters. Keep your eyes peeled for…an allusion, shall we say, and then you can tell me whether or not it was worth it!**

**-M.R.**

**III. A STRANGE ACHE**

_As she stood over the sleeping couple, the little mermaid loved the prince more than ever before. She knew she could never, ever kill him. Stepping to the moonlit window, she tossed the dagger out into the tossing waves and watched it disappear. Missing her family, she wished she could follow the dagger into the ocean and swim away, never to venture on land again. _

_But with her tail replaced by legs, she could not swim as well in the water, nor survive underneath it; with her tongue cut out, she could never tell her sisters all that had happened, nor sing with them when ships sailed by above the water. Worst of all, her increased love for her prince increased the little mermaid's heartache. Her gaze traveled from the water to the beach just below the window, scattered with big and sharp rocks._

_If she'd killed the prince, his soul would have gone to heaven. But if she killed herself, she would end not only her life but also her existence. She had no soul. What better way to end the pain in her heart?_

_Lifting herself up on the window-sill, the little mermaid leapt out into the air, expecting her brains to be dashed out against the frightening rocks below. But with the unerring skill of one who has spent one's life swimming, the little mermaid had dived gracefully into the water instead._

_Just as she had expected, though, her human limbs did not know how to swim, and her human lungs could not gain oxygen from the water. She thrashed about as the salt water rushed painfully into her nose; she could not breathe…_

_Suddenly, the little mermaid felt nothing. Then she felt as though she were floating, but in the air, not water. She looked down at the water, saw her body, and realized, as she was borne into the rising sun by the hands of winged beings, that she had died—but, for her deep and true love of the prince, she had been granted a soul._

"Belle?"

"Papa!" Belle was too sensible, even at thirteen years old, to feel any embarrassment at being so glad to welcome her father home. Putting down the story book, she flung herself into his arms, squashing her nose against his leather coat. "How was your day?"

"I had a lot of orders today. It was busy, but not a bad day all told." Maurice, who had made a living of his carpentry in the city, squeezed his daughter tight before holding her at arm's length. "Belle, your mother named you well. You're getting taller, and prettier, every day! And smarter, too, I bet," he winked, knowing how his daughter, young as she was, disliked to be called merely pretty. The problem was that she was the spitting image of her mother, if darker of hair—his hair, in fact—and so that was what everyone who met her for the first time commented on. "Did that Lucien boy visit today?" he continued, nodding towards the new, small stack of books perched precariously on top of a boxy piece of furniture in the corner of the room.

"Yes, he did," Belle confirmed, heading into the kitchen to heat the soup she'd made hours ago. It was a joke between Belle and Maurice that her excellent cooking involved witchcraft; Maurice, although he had been her first teacher, was a truly horrible cook. But it went without saying that Belle had gained most of her culinary knowledge from, yes, reading books full of simple recipes. "And he taught me about division of numbers, and brought me a story book from school, and, Papa, he bought a dictionary for me!"

"Did he?" Maurice, facing away from Belle as he removed his boots, scarf, and coat, smiled, wise in the ways of smitten young men. "That was very nice of him. Of course you thanked him…?"

"Of course I did," Belle responded by rote; in the past, she had pointed out that her father had no reason to ask outright if she had exercised the right courtesies, such as thanks, if he had raised her as well by himself as he was always marveling aloud that he had. Maurice, with a great roar of laughter, had complied. "And he read me one of the stories in the book, and I've spent the rest of the afternoon reading another one. Papa, will you cut some bread, please?"

Entrusted as he was with a relatively harmless part of the dinner preparations, Maurice chuckled as he opened the breadbox. "What were the stories about?" he prompted his daughter, knowing she was bursting to tell _someone_ about what she'd read.

"Well, the first one was about a poor homeless boy who found a magical lamp with a genie inside of it. With the help of the genie and his own brain, he ended up marrying the princess of the land. And then the other one was about a mermaid who wanted to be human, so she could marry a prince she rescued from drowning, but the sea-witch who turned her into a human cut out her tongue in payment—"

"Ugh," shuddered Maurice, slathering butter onto thick slices of brown bread.

"That's how I reacted, myself. Anyways, she did manage to find the prince, but he thought someone else had been his rescuer, so he was friends with the mermaid and married the other girl instead. And then…" Belle paused. The advent of her father's return home had chased the ending of _The Little Mermaid_ almost completely from her head. Stopping only to place the steaming bowls of soup on the table (this time, Belle had remembered to put slices of cheese atop the bowls while they were still _piping! _hot), she ran over to the boxy piece of furniture in the corner and opened the story book, flipping quickly through it to get to the end of the tale.

The furniture piece on which Belle's books resided, by the way, was a cleverly-designed desk Maurice had built for her. The seat, which was built into the desk itself, swiveled in a way that Belle could sit right by the window behind it as though there was a window seat already there, and an entire wall of the desk on one side was a bookshelf, small but more than enough to house Belle's small collection of books: _Morte d'Arthur_, which Belle considered the pinnacle of romance; _Don Quixote_, which Maurice had given her for her twelfth birthday and which competed with _Morte d'Arthur _as Belle's favorite book; _Romeo and Juliet_; a slim volume of complied poetry written by the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots; the dictionary Lucien had just given Belle; the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, translated from Greek to French; and a tattered, scrawled-on copy of Molière's _Tartuffe, ou l'imposteur_, a relic from her mother's home. A troupe of traveling players had performed for Belle's mother and the nobleman she'd married, and little Belle had been so enchanted with the magic of her first stage performance—and the actors with the tiny, exquisite girl—that one thespian had gifted her his script.

"…the mermaid dies of heartbreak and is granted a soul," finished Belle with a tragic sigh, just as her father put a bottle of watered-down wine on the table along with two cups, next to the plate of buttered bread.

"Cheerful," Maurice told her.

Belle shut the book with a _whump_ and waved it at her father reproachingly. "That's not funny! I do think it's silly for a _real_ person to die for love," she conceded practically, "but there's something about a character in a book doing so, that gives me a strange ache in my heart."

"Well, Belle," said her papa, "I've never gotten a strange ache just from reading, except a headache when I read too much! But maybe you could read me the story about the boy who found a magic lamp, after dinner?"

"I'd love to," Belle said, and meant it.

**.:..:..:.**

That night after she was sure her father was asleep, Belle lit a small stub of candle on her bedside table, and drew the story book out from under her pillow.

It was a Friday night, so Lucien wouldn't come to take this book back to school until Monday morning. But there were _so_ many tales, and goodness only knew when Lucien would be able to smuggle her this book in particular again, and the two stories she'd already read had been so very interesting—anyways, Belle _had_ to keep reading so she could finish the book in the next two days! Besides, she was wide awake.

Disregarding the table of contents this time, Belle turned the pages in order. The first tale, _The Elves and the Shoemaker_, Belle had read before and dismissed as extremely dull. It was probably only in this book for the small children's amusement. The next was _The Tale of Schmuel_. Belle read the brief tale of the time-traveling tailor of Klimovitch, which was written in verse, with interest, but found the ending a bit "anticlimactic"—a word she'd come across earlier, in her new dictionary—and moved on.

Then there was a story about a beautiful young girl, called Snow White, whose stepmother was jealous of her beauty. Unfortunately for the girl, the stepmother was also, by default of marrying the girl's late father, who had been king, now queen of the land. Although the young princess faked her own death and fled into the forest, where she struck up a friendship with seven dwarves, the wicked queen found her and poisoned her. The dwarves overcame the queen, but it was too late; they mourned for the princess until a prince came riding into the forest clearing and gave the apparently-dead princess True Love's Kiss—whereupon she awoke and was borne away to the prince's castle.

Belle stared at the last page with an air of mild disgust. She might love stories, but she was also a very practical thirteen-year-old, and the end of _Snow White_ was just too ridiculous. Where did the prince come from (and return to), some other country? How on earth did he know Snow White was actually under a spell? Wasn't he afraid to kiss someone who looked dead? And why did Snow White just suddenly decide she was in love with the prince? He might have saved her life, but, Belle reasoned, surely a simple "thank you" was enough?

Belle'd heard the story of her parents' romance enough times to know several important things. The first was that home should be where the heart is, no matter how old one got. The second was that love was the most important thing in the world. And the third one was that love didn't happen Just Like That. Somehow, Belle doubted that a "love" where neither person had ever even met before sharing their first kiss, could possibly last.

And Prince Charming was a silly name, too, Belle decided. So was Snow White. Who ever heard of a princess being named for her skin tone—? And Belle flushed, realizing that with a name that meant "beauty" in her own language, _she_ was the silly one. Cheeks burning although there was no one to witness her shame, Belle turned the page.

The fourth story caught Belle's attention immediately. She was, it seemed, almost as intrigued by the concept of a healing flower sprung from a drop of pure sunlight as was the elderly witch who discovered it. As the story progressed, though, Belle was glad she _wasn't_ as interested, because when a pregnant, sick queen ate the flower and was healed, the flower's magic was transferred to the baby—who was kidnapped by the witch, a woman who desired above all else to be forever young and beautiful.

The witch raised the kidnapped princess, whom she named Rapunzel, all alone in a tall tower, until a thief stumbled across the tower by accident and was blackmailed into escorting Rapunzel to the annual lantern festival, a festival the princess could see from her window. Ironically, the festival was in memory of the missing princess, who, by the end of the story, realized this, defeated the witch, reunited with her true parents, and married the not-so-thievish thief.

Belle rather preferred the story of Rapunzel to that of Snow White. Not only had Rapunzel spent more time conscious, she had knocked out Flynn (the thief), interrogated him, forced him to take her to the festival, and saved them from bloodthirsty thugs, she'd saved Flynn's life multiple times, and…

Belle's eyelids were heavy. Blowing out the candle, she set the story book next to it and lay back in bed, imagining fending off thugs and thieves with a frying pan. Someday, she promised herself, she would go on adventures of her own.


	4. Strolling By the Seine

**IV. STROLLING BY THE SEINE **

A year passed, with little other consequence than that Belle was almost always separated from Lucien's precious book of stories. And again, fall and winter passed Paris by; then spring—which this year felt more like a teasing of extreme temperatures than a separate season—ever-so-slowly turned into summer; a glorious, beautiful summer that choked the bridges over the Seine with young couples admiring the scenery (and, occasionally, their surroundings). Despite Paris's reputation as the City of Lovers, the bakers and weavers, peddlers and farmers, whether driving into or simply through the city to sell their wares, did not appreciate the congestion—although of course the farmers were only really present in the fall, at harvest time, and so only caught the traffic of lingering lovers taking advantage of the last warm, golden days.

The morning of the Feast of Fools, wagon traffic was slow enough that a fourteen-year-old girl on her way back from market, with a basket on each elbow, a bundle under one arm, and an open book in her hands could maneuver her way between vehicles as well as couples without much danger. As usual, she was oblivious to her surroundings as she read; by now, Belle's route was familiar enough to her that she picked her way over stray cats (who would never have scratched her, anyways, seeing as Belle fed them leftover scraps at her back door) and loose cobblestones with relative ease. As a result, Belle hardly noticed the sparkling (if not quite clean enough to be blue) river, the tall stone buildings and dramatic bridges, or even the stares that followed her everywhere: curious stares, that a person of the female persuasion would not only read books, so often and happily, but also in public and while walking; jealous stares, aimed by girls who knew nothing of the apparently reclusive, strange, daydreaming, but beautiful girl; and which were, of course, prompted by the intrigued stares of their beaux.

On the other side of the bridge, Belle's ears pricked at the sound of fluting music unlike anything she had really heard before. Lowering her book for the first time that morning, she looked around until her eyes settled on a small troupe of gypsies, performing for coins against the backdrop of the wall that divided river from city. Despite all the things she'd heard about gypsies—that they were thieves, and pernicious and sinful besides—Belle drifted closer, fascinated. The gypsy girl who danced to the piping of a flute, and accompanying herself on a strange, small drum with discs of metal set into it that jingled like bells, was only a few years older than Belle. She was clothed in varying shades of green, blue, gold, and purple (Belle looked down at her plain green frock, truly dissatisfied with it for the first time. Why couldn't she dress in such bright colors? she wondered enviously).

As the gypsy girl looked up from smiling at a pet goat that danced with her, her eyes caught on Belle's and Belle caught her breath. In addition to curly, pure-black hair such as Belle had never seen on anyone _but_ gypsies, the girl had big green eyes. Belle had never been dissatisfied with her own looks, but this gypsy girl, she decided, was the most beautiful person she'd ever seen. Imagine looking like that!

The two girls stared at each other for a split second; then the gypsy tossed Belle a dazzling smile and resumed her dance. Returning the smile, Belle moved forward and tossed a few coins into a hat on the ground.

A hand clasped her arm like a vise. "Belle, be careful!" hissed Lucien, leading her away. "Keep doing that and you'll have a whole crowd of gypsies following you home like those stray cats you feed. Only stray cats aren't thieves like gypsies are," he clarified, looping his arm through Belle's. Belle allowed this liberty, but shoved a basket into his other hand in exchange.

"Lucien! Hello!" Belle replied innocently, her joy at seeing her friend diverting her as they walked away. "Look what I have with me." She waggled her book in his face.

"I can't believe you're still not done reading that book," Lucien complained, peering owlishly over it at his best friend. Ever since his fifteenth birthday in the winter, he'd assumed a sort of air of superiority over Belle—and gotten much taller, too. Belle couldn't ever quite be sure which fact annoyed her more.

"Maybe it's because you haven't asked for it back!" she said tartly, shutting the tome and tucking it into one of the baskets she carried. "You_ did_ lend it to me."

"A month ago," grumbled Lucien.

"And you hadn't brought it back from school in _ages_, but got to keep it now that school was out," she reminded him triumphantly.

Lucien acknowledged this with a twitch of his eyebrow. "It's not so much that I _need _it back, or anything. But you're such a _fast_ reader, Belle," he pointed out. "I expected you'd have the book back to me in a week or so…"

Belle looked guilty. "I've been forcing myself to savor each story, so I only read one every week, on my way back from market—Oh! Can we stop walking for a moment?"

Confused, Lucien obliged and looked Belle over. She didn't look injured in any way, so he followed her gaze. "What's wrong? It's only the Cathedral de Notre Dame de Paris, Belle. We attend Mass here every Sunday. Remember?"

"_Only_! Lucien, it's so beautiful."

"Mhm." Lucien's eyes, in time-honored tradition, were directed at Belle, not the building she was staring at.

Belle fluttered a hand through the air, somewhat hampered by the basket in the crook of her elbow. "It's such a grand building. It reminds me of…of when the choir is singing all together, with the organ, in Mass. That wide, full feeling. And those _windows_! Oh, I think stained glass is one of the most exquisite things in the world. And the bells—the big ones loud as thunder, and the little bells soft as…as a psalm. I wonder what the view must be like from so hi—Lucien! Look!"

Lucien squinted. "It's just the bell-ringer."

"Well, I thought so, too, but I've never actually seen him before." Belle was spellbound. "Isn't he afraid, climbing the spires and towers and gargoyles? Imagine if he fell!"

"I try not to," shuddered Lucien. "Belle, nobody knows _how_ long that man has been up there, but it's probably long enough that he's good at climbing. Like a monkey, in the jungle, or something."

Shading her eyes against the sun, Belle watched the hunchbacked man, as small as an ant from where she stood, as he leapt nimbly about the cathedral's façade. She couldn't help but notice that he never left the area of the roof. "But he's _not_ a monkey, Lucien," she said softly. "That poor man, all alone up there. He must be very lonely."

"They say his face is as misshapen as his back," Lucien said irrelevantly.

"Perhaps he's afraid to come down," Belle continued. "Who could blame him? People are so cruel. They might treat him as if he _were_ a monkey, not a person."

Because of her father's dependency on herself, Belle left her house only to go to market, or to visit with Lucien, or trade recipes and household tricks with his mother. Sometimes, she left the house alone and found somewhere warm, sunny, and peaceful to read, but even then she was alone. She had very few people to talk to, besides Papa and Lucien's family and Nicole, a shy little girl who lived next door and whom Belle had only recently coaxed into a sort of friendship. Belle was teaching the child how to read. Reclusive as Belle might be by default, though, at least she _could _leave her house—and she had very little reason to be afraid to do so.

Tearing her eyes away from the cathedral and its lonely denizen, she looked down at the contents of her market basket. "Oh, dear. The vegetables are beginning to wilt. Lucien, we'd better head home," she counseled him, as though it had been his idea to stop. Lucien noticed this too, but in his relief he simply rolled his eyes as he trotted after Belle.

"Which story are you in the middle of?" Lucien asked, in the interest of cheerful conversation, especially as Belle seemed lost in thought, her face sad and thoughtful.

"What? Oh, a fascinating one about a prince who was turned into a frog."

"I haven't read it," lied Lucien. "What happens?"

"Well, he meets a princess who accidentally drops her necklace into the pond he lives in," giggled Belle, imagining living in a slimy, untended pond. "So he promises to bring her the necklace if she'll give him a kiss. Of course the princess thinks that's disgusting, but she agrees to the deal. Only she's lied, and she runs away laughing when he gives her her necklace back," Belle concluded. "That's as far as I've gotten, because _someone_ was suddenly towering over me like a tree!"

Fortunately for Lucien, they had reached the street where they both lived. "So, Belle, are you coming back with me?" he asked hastily.

"Coming back where?" asked Belle absently, rooting around in her pocket for the key to her house.

"Why, to the Festival of Fools!"

"What? I've never been to it before," Belle added, irrelevantly, but Lucien used that to his advantage.

"All the more reason to attend today!" Lucien grinned. "Belle, I thought you were the adventurous one! The one who likes to try new things!"

"There is that," Belle said drily. "What is it like?"

"Well, it's not your ordinary festival," Lucien informed her. "Everyone is devoted to being very silly and topsy-turvy."

Belle snickered suddenly. "Oh—sorry, Lucien! I wasn't…I thought for a moment of all the men in dresses, and the women in trousers," she informed her companion.

Lucien raised an eyebrow. "That's just _too _silly, Belle. A woman in trousers is about as immodest as she can be. But there probably will be _some _men dressed as women, and vice versa," he added, trying to illustrate the craziness of such a day.

"Papa won't be home until late, he has a rush order, so I doubt he'll mind…" mused Belle. "I think I will come with you. Let me bring all of the food inside, and write Papa a note…"


	5. A Day Out

**For those of you who are concerned, by the way: Don't worry, this isn't going to escalate into a full-out **_**Hunchback of Notre Dame **_**crossover! The only character from **_**Hunchback **_**who has a "speaking role" in this story makes their first appearance in this chapter, although a few other main characters will be mentioned. (Frollo's angling for a line or two, but that should be all he gets, I promise.) An event or two from **_**Hunchback **_**will feature strongly in the next few months or so of Belle's life; but the cast of that movie should be out of her hair by Chapter Ten.**

**V. A DAY OUT**

"For someone as wary as you are of gypsies, Lucien, I'm surprised you brought me to a festival they largely participate in," Belle commented. Even from their position in front of stalls on the very edge of the festival, she could see the bright, clownish garments and violet half-mask of the man who claimed center stage.

Lucien, who hadn't been listening enough to catch nuance as well as words, looked down at Belle sharply. "You're not afraid, are you?" he asked, putting an arm around her shoulders protectively.

Belle just looked at him, and Lucien laughed aloud.

"Forget I said anything. It isn't so bad on a day like this; most everyone seems to have an unspoken agreement to get along, have fun—and turn things upside-down. But you do want to watch your purse; there are skilled pickpockets here," Lucien added quickly.

Belle moved forward, removing Lucien's arm from her shoulders in a movement so seamless that, if he hadn't been so hyperaware of her every movement, Lucien might've missed it entirely. "Oh, look at these beautiful pieces of jewelry!" she cried, her dazzled eyes drinking in emeralds, opals, amber and amethysts, rubies and pearls—all crafted skillfully into gold or silver bracelets, necklaces, eardrops, and rings that were intricate yet delicate. "I suppose they cost a fortune…but then, I have nowhere to wear anything this fancy, anyways," Belle concluded, her face falling before it settled again into its usual practical, lively yet serene expression.

If she had been smoothing over an unintentional hint, she could not have spoken more tactfully, and Lucien's face behind Belle's shoulder was disappointed. He exchanged a discouraged look with the woman who managed the jewelry stall.

When Belle and Lucien had crossed this same town square earlier in the morning, it had only just been set up and still empty; but now the space burst with color and sound. Costumes were constructed with rather more imagination that might be found at a high-society masquerade ball: Men dressed as dogs and lobsters walked their masters on leashes or trundled cooks in cauldrons; Belle saw a person (she wasn't sure whether or not it was a woman or a man) wearing half a dress and half a pair of pants and half a man's shirt; every so often, a man in stilts walked by over your head. A pleasant cacophony of voices met the ears, interwoven with music coming from various corners of the square, yet not dissonant; the usual city smells were subdued by those of smoke and roasting meat and freshly-baked goods and smell of hot horse and smell of hot human.

With good grace, Lucien squired Belle around to every stall that caught her fancy. Belle's unpracticed arm still sent a monk spluttering into a basin of water, and she won a cloth doll which she planned to give to little Nicole. Lucien lingered at a booth which boasted the tasting of several newly imported wines until Belle dragged him away to a similar stall featuring cheeses and flavored honeys. After a much longer sojourn at this stall they were still hungry, so they purchased some sausage and bread, while watching the masked gypsy single-handedly perform a puppet show, ostensibly for the children in the audience, but which occasionally featured wordplay above their comprehension, that made the men roar with laughter and the ladies blush.

After this, Belle assured Lucien that, no, she wouldn't get kidnapped the moment he stepped next door to look at leather goods, armor, and weapons, before she went towards the long, crude stables constructed for the horse competition. Prosperous farmers and proud Parisian citizens alike submitted their best, most favored steeds to be judged by the fairgoers, as well as by a group of skilled horsemen and breeders. The winner, Belle overheard a man tell his friend, would receive a sack of gold and a fine mare.

The entrance to the stables was somewhat blocked by an armored guard on horseback. Were women not allowed in? Belle wondered, a frown creasing her forehead.

Though Belle, as a vulnerable young woman, greatly appreciated the more heavily guarded areas of Paris, she knew from experience that the soldiers were more often than not stupid, slow, and made no secret of their perception of women as inferior creatures. Still, remembering her manners, Belle sought a way to be admitted. "Do you guard against the horses' escape, monsieur, or does your horse guard his fellows from insolent observers?" she asked.

The man looked down at her, his face inscrutable through a visored helmet. To Belle's surprise, this guard answered coherently, and even humorously. "Neither, madame. Gypsy thieves, they tell me, are only too eager to take advantage of the biggest gathering of fine horseflesh of the year. Besides, my horse Achilles is so proud he probably wishes he were in the stables, competing with the other horses."

Achilles snorted as though he understood what his master had said, and Belle laughed. "Achilles?" she repeated. "Such an unusual name for a horse. Is he so magnificent in war, sir? Or is he merely of Grecian stock?"

The guard lifted his visor. Despite how much higher he sat than diminutive Belle stood, Belle could tell that his eyes were a brilliant blue. "You have read the _Iliad_?" he asked incredulously. "You can, in fact, read?"

"Of course I can read," Belle said impatiently.

"There's no 'of course' about it," the guard replied. "You are a woman." Seeing Belle's indignant look, he dismounted hastily. "Pardon me. I don't mean to insult you, madame, but I have never met a woman of your age who could read, let alone in Greek."

"We-ell," Belle grinned, "I'm afraid my copy of the _Iliad_ is a French translation. But please, stop calling me madame. I am not married."

"How fortunate," the guard said softly, in a voice which made Belle's scalp prickle and her throat go dry, "for me. But I'm forgetting my manners," he winked, and doffed his helmet to reveal straw-colored hair and a short beard, both as yellow as his armor. His eyes weren't a very bright blue, but they were made prominent by his sun-darkened skin, unusual in a man of such rank. "My name is Captain Phoebus," he introduced himself, which rank—captain of the guards—explained his unusual armor. "I'm a newcomer to Paris. That is, I used to live here, but I've been away at war for quite some time."

"I am Belle Delancret," returned the owner of that name. Her eyes twinkled. "You were named after the Greek god of the sun?"

Captain Phoebus chuckled. "I'm sure it doesn't suit me. However, your name suits you perfectly," he told Belle, his earnest blue eyes meeting hers.

Belle swallowed. "You flatter me, monsieur," she chided him. "And flattery is not what I meant to ask of you. I had intended to visit the horses, but yours was blocking the entrance."

"Let me tie up Achilles," offered Captain Phoebus, suiting word to action, "and I'll escort you through the stables myself. There are a great many, smelly men in there, and I would not have you encounter them alone. And perhaps in return you might tell me how a girl as young and pretty and simply-dressed as you found herself a reader of the classics."

"Thank you, Captain," said Belle, accepting the proffered arm. "I would like that very much."

Inside the stables it was not quite as crowded as Captain Phoebus had predicted, but the subdued hum of men's voices was loud enough that Belle felt less inhibited in chattering freely to her new friend. "…and so my papa gives me a book every year on my birthday. I can't wait to find out what he's found, this year. Or to turn fifteen, for that matter!"

Captain Phoebus chuckled at her childishly impatient tones. "For your papa's sake, I hope you don't have very long to wait!"

"Only a month." Feeling Phoebus's eyes upon her, Belle hastily did her duty by the conversation, switching the focus to her companion. "What brings you to Paris at so late a date, if you missed it as much as you say?"

"War," Phoebus replied drily, "tends to limit one's personal freedom. Not to mention mobility."

"Oh," said Belle inadequately. "I didn't mean to…I'm afraid my experience on the battlefield is limited."

"I should hate to see you on a battlefield."

"For my safety?" Belle raised a bored eyebrow.

"For the safety of the opposing army," Phoebus countered. "At any rate, I _have_ missed Paris, but now I somewhat miss the campaign. At least there, I felt useful. Here, I'm commissioned to capture fortune-tellers and palm-readers."

"The gypsies." Belle thought of the beautiful girl she'd seen in the morning, and her stomach seemed to sink.

"Just so." Phoebus turned to her earnestly. "What is the general impression of Judge Frollo?"

Belle considered. "I wouldn't know what the _general_ opinion is, as I don't know too many people, but he seems…he seems to know what he's doing."

"I had noticed that."

Belle continued, "I think everyone is a little afraid of him. But most everyone I know thinks that gypsies are all coarse and dirty and dishonest, so he is respected for his raids on them."

"Do _you_ believe that gypsies are evil?"

"I—" Belle hesitated. Captain Phoebus was kind, but she had barely known him half an hour, he was Captain of Frollo's guards, after all—and _she_ was being entirely too trusting of him just because she got goose-pimples when he smiled. _Speak carefully_, she cautioned herself. "I've never met a gypsy, myself. Certainly some of them may be thieves or murderers. But not all of the criminals in Paris are gypsies, either. It doesn't make sense to me, to assume that everyone who _looks_ one way on the outside, must be also similar on the _inside_."

To her relief, Phoebus smiled. "Mlle Delancret, you could have been a lawyer."

"I could have been a great many things," Belle said, half-jokingly and half-wistfully, "if I had been born a boy." Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she crossed the stables. "Captain, look at this beautiful horse!"

The horse in question was a beautiful yellow mare, her coat shining enough as to be almost termed gold. Her big, gentle eyes regarded Belle as mildly and solemnly as the latter regarded her.

"Do you ride?" asked Phoebus, catching up to her.

"I had a pony when I was small, living in the country, but I've never ridden since," Belle confessed ruefully. Phoebus wondered how a lower-class, city-dwelling young woman, such as Belle, had not only lived far elsewhere long enough to remember, but also possessed a somewhat costly animal—but he held his silence politely. "I may not know much about horses and riding, but they are such beautiful, noble animals."

Phoebus let out a guffaw of laughter before remembering himself. "It's clear you don't know much about horses, then, Mlle Delancret. Take Achilles, for example. We may be friends by now, but he's as stubborn as they come."

Belle laughed, absentmindedly stroking the mare's nose and neck. "If all horses are stubborn, then I doubt I'll ever find one I can get along with well enough to learn to ride!"

"I'm sure Achilles wouldn't mind," Phoebus offered.

Belle's hands fell to her sides. "Would _you_?"

Phoebus's eyes focused on Belle in a way that made her pleasantly warm. He opened his mouth to say something…

"Belle!"

Belle nearly fell over as someone jostled her from behind. Lucien beamed widely at her. Too widely. He bestowed upon her companion a reluctant "Oh, hullo."

"Lucien," Belle prompted him, "this is Captain Phoebus. He's a guard. Captain, this is my best friend, Lucien Moreau."

"Um," grunted Phoebus, and "Ung," responded Lucien. They both stuck out a hand, and shook as though trying to break each other's fingers.

Belle, who was already as tall as she'd ever be, was tall for her age. Lucien was taller, but he was dwarfed next to Captain Phoebus. Next to Phoebus, as well, Lucien's fair hair, which faltered somewhere between blond and brown, looked dull, and his brown eyes seemed dark and sullen—although that might just be because Lucien was noticing all of these things, himself.

There was a very pregnant pause.

"I should return to my post," said Phoebus reluctantly. "Soon the great ceremony of the day will occur—the crowning of a King of Fools. I'd imagine neither of you want to miss it!" His eyes lingered on Belle. "Until then…"

"It was a pleasure to meet you," Lucien put in hastily, as if eager to prove that he, too, could manage complex sentences…as well as manners.

"Yes, it was," Belle echoed.


	6. The King of Fools

**VI. THE KING OF FOOLS**

"—hmmm-grmm," said Lucien.

Belle twisted in his direction and cried out as the sharp movement hurt her neck. "I'm sorry, Lucien, what?"

Lucien let out a sigh. "You haven't been listening."

Belle contrived to look as innocent as possible. "I haven't?"

Lucien raised a quizzical eyebrow at her, looking a bit more like himself. "I asked you a few minutes ago if you thought our view of the stage would look better from the moon, and you said, 'No, I'm not hungry, but you can go and get one if you want.'"

Belle flushed. "I am sorry. I actually wondered once what it would be like to stand on the moon. But you must admit, our vantage point from here on earth is good."

"That's not the point," Lucien protested, although more by rote than out of actual exasperation. "Well? I told you so! Aren't you glad I brought you here today?"

"Mm-hmm." Belle craned her neck again.

"What are you looking at, anyways?" asked Lucien, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer already.

This time, Belle paid attention enough to form a reasonably coherent reply. "Um, just the general splendor." She waved a vague hand at the red-and-black tent that adorned—if something that loomed over a lively festival like a vulture could be said to adorn—one side of the stage.

Chuckling, Lucien looked in that direction. "Is Judge Frollo so attractive today?" he teased Belle, choosing to ignore the armored figure that shone like a beacon on horseback at the judge's left hand.

Belle wrinkled her nose. "Don't be ridiculous," she advised Lucien, though admittedly she was teasing him back. "He always looks so unhappy. You would think, after accomplishing all that they say he has, he would at least be satisfied."

"He _does_ look self-satisfied," Lucien observed. "And pale as candle wax. Probably he doesn't leave his mansion much. He really should get out in the sun more."

"If he got out in the sun, he'd melt," giggled Belle, momentarily diverted. "He does look awfully like a dripping candle. That's why his nose is such a peculiar length. He's already melting, despite the canopy over him."

"How anyone can wear a black robe in such weather, I'll never know," Lucien added.

"Or armor," offered Belle absently.

Lucien sighed.

Out of nowhere, a cloud of red smoke enveloped the stage. Uninterested in magic tricks, Belle looked back at Lucien in time to catch the sigh. "I'm sorry. I'm just…a bit distracted today," she offered. It was more or less true. And she was aware that Lucien was…jealous of Captain Phoebus, for some reason or another—Belle refused to consider just how deep that jealousy might run, not wanting to borrow trouble.

Being a girl, and a sensible one at that, Belle thought this was all very silly. However, she knew she should probably swallow her frank words—at least this time—and try to find a tactful way to cheer Lucien up again. "It's just that—I have so few friends here—and all of the girls our age tend to be very silly—so whenever I get to know someone interesting and new, I get very excited. You know that already. And it isn't exactly as though I ignored you to talk to other people, is it? We were both looking at different things. Did you have fun? Or however waving swords around makes boys feel? I should have asked befo—Lucien?"

But Lucien, for once, was the one who wasn't listening. Belle checked her brief wave of irritation, wryly recalling that she hadn't been all that attentive a few minutes ago, either. She'd been watching Phoebus speak to Judge Frollo, feeling proud that she had such a well-read, overall interesting new friend, whereas Lucien—he was staring at the stage, his mouth slightly agape. Belle looked.

A dancer in a red dress had the stage to herself. She was extremely nimble—and curvy. Her black hair cascaded around her bared shoulders in waves, and when she winked at the audience Belle recognized her as the girl who had been dancing by the Seine hours earlier.

The girl's shoulders weren't all that was hinted at by the slope of her neckline. Belle was now able to divine the source of Lucien's inattention. She would have whacked him—on the head, in the ribs, or on an arm—if she thought it'd do any good.

So Belle watched for herself, fascinated at the way that the dancing gypsy girl seemed to focus entirely on herself even as she captivated the audience—well, the male half, anyway. She seemed utterly lost in the spellbinding music, even as she leapt over the audience's heads, planting a kiss on the entirely nonplussed Judge Frollo's nose and pulling his hat down over his face before returning to her solitary performance. The mocking gesture earned laughs and whistles from the audience, but Belle was a little embarrassed. Notwithstanding how disgusting it must have been to kiss Judge Frollo, even the dancer's exposing dress made Belle blush—not from any sort of feeling of personal inadequacy in the physical department despite her young age, but rather because she knew she could never wear something so revealing, herself. Belle was aware that her looks attracted enough attention already, and she didn't want it to be in the form of whistles and shouts like those directed at the dancer, who was just now swirling gracefully around a spear imbedded like a pole in the center of the stage, bringing her performance to a close.

The stage rang with coins tossed to the gypsy, who accepted them—and the cat-calls—with gracious smiles and nods. Belle saw Captain Phoebus toss a coin, and her stomach clenched oddly as she wondered if he'd been as transfixed as Lucien (now recovering from his slack-jawed, glassy-eyed state) had been.

"Did you see that?" Lucien asked Belle.

Belle cocked an eyebrow at him. "Obviously, not with the same eyes that you did."

Lucien had the grace to blush. "She is very pretty," he defended himself. "As pretty as you." Damn. He couldn't tell from Belle's expression whether or not she was flattered or upset. "I mean—"

"Shh," said Belle. "They're going to pick a King of Fools."

One by one, the gypsy girl pulled the masks off of the men lined up onstage. One by one, they made the most hideous, frightening faces imaginable. One by one, the crowd booed them offstage.

"That last man," Lucien considered, "his mask is ugly enough without being removed. He could win and we'd never know who he really was."

Belle made a noncommittal noise. Though she was interested in the custom itself, the identity of the man chosen didn't really interest her.

Finally there was one man left, the man Lucien had pointed out. The gypsy began to pull away his mask—

Only it wasn't a mask…

"What _is _it?"

"Oh, it's horrible!"

"_Mon Dieu!"_

"Oh, the poor man!" cried Belle, as Lucien, along with the rest of the crowd, yelled or gasped or shrieked. "His _face_. But how could no one have recognized him in time to warn the gypsies?"

As if in answer to her cry, someone's voice rang out from the uproar: "It's the bell-ringer from Notre Dame!"

Belle gasped, her clenched fist going to her mouth. As far from the stage as she and Lucien stood, she could tell that the bell-ringer was hurt by people's fear of him. Why couldn't those closer to the stage see it, too? He was probably _terrified_.

She was thankful when the masked gypsy overseeing the Feast of Fools stepped in. "Ladies and gentlemen, do not panic!" he begged the tumultuous sea of people. "We asked for the ugliest face in Paris—and here it is—Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame!"

As if at a signal the crowd rushed forward, cheering and laughing now. "How fickle they are," Lucien muttered.

Belle nodded emphatically. "But at least now he isn't being ridiculed. I hope they don't turn on him again."

It didn't seem as though that was possible, to either teenager. The hunchbacked bell-ringer accepted the regalia appropriate to the King of Fools—litter, scepter, cape, and a cloth crown that was sewn like a fool's cap—with joy. Quasimodo, for that was his name (though how the gypsies had already known it, no one could tell), seemed extremely happy…as if he had never known such a warm welcome. He responded eagerly to the crowd's cheers, their chants of "Quasimodo, Quasimodo," the flowers and handfuls of paper confetti they threw to him as he was paraded in the litter around the stage.

For a moment, Belle thought that Quasimodo's world must be perfect.

And then that moment ended.

Suddenly his face was dripping dark red. The crowd hushed somewhat, realizing at the same time he did that it was a rotten tomato, and not his own blood.

"Now _that's_ ugly!" bellowed a voice. Belle turned with everyone else to see a guard. Given her previous experience with those men she would have been willing to bet all the horses in the contest stables that he had thrown that tomato.

"Hail to the _king_!" jeered another guard, and the hunchback was pelted with another tomato.

Belle frowned and began to say something to Lucien, but stopped, aghast, when the stunned crowd revived—and began to pelt, not roses or confetti but more tomatoes, and even cabbage, eggs, and squash at the King of Fools. Once again the voices swelled with jeering and cruel laughter. The hunchback slipped on the now-slick stage beneath him and fell. A rope snaked from the audience and kept him from rising, and Belle emitted a sound that was half scream, half whimper. "Those horrible—" she began, starting towards the men now binding the hunchback to a rotating platform, but was jerked back by Lucien.

"Let me go!" she whispered fiercely, twisting her wrist in indignation, as that was where Lucien held her.

"Don't," was all he said.

Belle stared at her best friend. His eyes were big with something a little bit like annoyance, and a little bit like fear. "Someone has to…"

"Belle, please," Lucien hissed. "Just don't."

"Lucien, you're hurting me." Belle's voice was steely, despite the pain in her wrist—minor, it was true, but irritating nonetheless.

"I won't let you go unless you promise to stay here," Lucien said just as resolutely, but he loosened his grip on Belle's hand and arm without slackening it.

Pinned to the spot, Belle burst into tears of frustration and sorrow as Quasimodo was spun around relentlessly, propelled by the rope-wielders, assailed from all sides by rotting produce. Though Belle could not hear what he cried, she followed his gaze to Judge Frollo, who appeared to be ignoring the hunchback's pitiful plight—despite, she couldn't help but notice, the agitated body language displayed by his Captain of the Guard. "Oh, the horrible man!" she spat, stomping her foot. "He could stop this, if he wanted. Everyone is afraid of him."

"Which is why they are doing this," Lucien added.

Belle was on the point of turning to Lucien and asking if they could please leave now, when once more the crowd hushed as suddenly as passing into the eye of a storm.

A single figure ascended the scaffolding of the platform and knelt by the bound hunchback. As she wiped the tears and filth from his face, Belle recognized the gypsy dancer a second time.

Judge Frollo's voice rang out ("Finally," muttered Belle, and Lucien was thinking it). "You—gypsy girl! Get down at _once_!"

"Yes, Your Honor!" the gypsy replied in a clear voice. "Just as soon as I free this poor creature."

"I forbid it!"

With a single swift stroke, the gypsy drew a dagger and cut the ropes.

"How dare you defy me!" thundered Frollo, but the gypsy girl was unimpressed. The same could not be said for the crowd, which hummed and buzzed like a beehive at each new development.

"You mistreat this poor boy the same way you mistreat my people! You speak of justice, yet you are cruel to those most in need of your help—"

"Silence!"

"JUSTICE!" the gypsy girl screamed, thrusting her dagger into the air. Belle felt that she had never admired anyone so much as at that moment. But the gypsy didn't wait for Belle's approbation, the crowd's shock, or Judge Frollo's fury. She turned her back on them all, helping the hunchback Quasimodo to his feet.

Frollo didn't appreciate being ignored. "Mark my words, gypsy, you will pay for this insolence."

"Then it appears we've crowned the wrong fool! The only fool I see is you." A swing of the gypsy's free hand, and the fool's cap landed at Frollo's feet. He sneered, saying a swift word and gesticulating at Phoebus, who in turn urged his horse forward, along with the other guards, to arrest her.

She seemed upset to the point of tears at first—then sneezed into a handkerchief and disappeared!

"And you complained about _my_ grasp," winced Lucien as Belle's fingernails dug into his arm in surprise. Once more the crowd changed its tune, cheering for the girl's escape.

"Sorry," said Belle absently, as she watched the gypsy reappear and lead the guards a merry chase, which involved the destruction of Judge Frollo's tent. Much as she esteemed Captain Phoebus, Belle felt she could never forgive him if he brought the gypsy dancer into custody. Here was a girl Belle's age, far more assertive and intelligent than any Belle had met. Belle wished she could find a friend like her, and as the girl finally vanished, Belle prayed she would survive, so she could see her again.


	7. Barely Even Friends

**VII. BARELY EVEN FRIENDS**

It was raining as Lucien and Belle picked their way through the streets, which seemed to pretty nearly reflect their mood. But Belle didn't even seem to notice it, let alone the steady dampening of her dress and hair. "I just don't _understand_," she fumed, "how there can be so many heartless, stupid, unfeeling, _cruel_ people in the entire world, let alone just in Paris!"

Though Lucien stood at least a head taller than Belle, he habitually shortened his gait so that they could walk together. Just now, however, he found himself hurrying to keep up with his angry friend. "I'm sorry the day had to end this way, Belle."

Belle emitted a sound that was half sob, half sigh. "_My_ day! I had a lovely time earlier, Lucien. Thank you for bringing me. But I can't even begin," she fumed, "to dwell on how badly _my_ day went, when today must have been the worst of that poor boy, ah, Quasimodo's life. What did that poor boy ever do to—No. It's worse than that. They mocked that poor, defenseless young man for his _looks_. As if they were something he could help."

"You're too good, Belle."

Belle looked sideways at her friend. "Am I, Lucien? Don't you think they did wrong?" But Belle was so upset she couldn't wait for an answer. "They said this Quasimodo was a ward of Judge Frollo…? But it doesn't make sense; why would he try to arrest the gypsy girl for interfering, then? Wait, why didn't he even try to stop that vile crowd? He had an entire—there were guards—" Spluttering with rage, Belle paused to draw a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm not surprised Quasimodo never set foot outside the cathedral before today, if this is how people decide to treat him!"

"Quasimodo," mulled Lucien sympathetically. "Belle…his name means 'half-formed'."

"I'd like to kick whoever named him then," said Belle fiercely. "And _you_!" she began suddenly, rounding on a surprised Lucien. "You held me back! You kept me from—"

"—from doing what?" Lucien retorted defensively.

"Oh, _I _don't know!" Belle cried, flinging her hands into the air. "Anything would have been better than just standing there, watching those people torment him—"

"And did you think that if _you _went up there and tried to put a stop to things, people would listen? That Judge Frollo would applaud your wisdom? What makes you different from the gypsy girl in that respect, Belle? What would you have accomplished, other than getting _yourself_ hurt into the bargain?"

"In case you didn't notice, Lucien, the gypsy girl, who _did_ help him, wasn't hurt!"

"No, but she was pretty nearly arrested! Somehow I don't see you escaping capture so easily! I mean, imagine if she didn't know all those flashy magic tricks! Do you know what the guards in the Palace of Justice _do_ to pretty women prisoners?"

Belle's eyes flashed. "They're not all like that."

"_Mon Dieu_, Belle!" Both were so angry that Belle seemed to accept Lucien's swear as a matter of course. "You've known the Captain of the Guards a few hours, at most, whereas you've known me for _years_. And in case you hadn't forgotten, he was the one trying to arrest the gypsy girl!"

Belle seized on the worst possible part of what Lucien had said. "Where does how long I've known _you_ come into it? Lucien, are you comparing yourself to him? Is that what this is really all about?"

"No—why?" Lucien added hastily, his tone changing. "Is that all any of it means, to you?"

In the grey light, Belle nearly tripped over the familiar uneven cobblestones of the street on which they lived, but she gave Lucien glare for glare. "To me, this afternoon was the sad exposure of the complete lack of justice exhibited by people, let alone the so-called Palace of Justice."

"That's what it was to me, too," Lucien protested.

Belle strode away, reaching for the door handle. "You could have fooled me," she said coldly, without looking back, and stepped into her house, locking the door behind her. Then she slumped against the thick door, burying her face in her hands.

"Belle? Is everything all right?" A bulky figure appeared in the kitchen door.

"Papa!" She'd never been happier to see her father. Wrapping her arms around him, Belle buried her face in her father's shoulder and poured out the day's events to him, beginning with the festival's initial fun and her new friend, and proceeding to the crowning of the King of Fools and all that had gone wrong—including her argument with Lucien just a while ago.

Belle never quite knew how it'd happened, but by the end of her story she was sitting at the table picking at mutton and buttered bread. "Lucien was right about _one_ thing," she said wryly, swallowing a small mouthful, "and that's how long we've known one another. And I thought that meant I knew him _well_, too. I always thought Lucien was…well, nice," she finished lamely. "And now to find out he doesn't care—"

"Belle," interrupted Maurice gently but firmly, "Lucien _does_ care. He cares about you very much. First of all," he began the new sentence quickly, holding up a hand to forestall her protest, "he wouldn't have kept you from getting hurt by that crowd. It's the same thing I would have done, and I am going to thank him for it, since you won't."

Like most people, Belle was relatively immature when angry. Rather than acknowledge the subtle rebuke, she just emitted an aggrieved sigh.

"And secondly…" It was Maurice's turn to sigh. He was aware that Belle was going to hate what he said next, but sooner or later she would have to face up to it. "If Lucien didn't care about you, Belle, he wouldn't be protective of you towards a man that we hardly know, and so cannot immediately trust—yes, even if he is well-read. And he wouldn't be jealous of your acquaintance with this man, either."

"Jealous? Papa!" Belle put down her fork and knife. "Lucien doesn't care about me _that_ way! We are very good friends, but _only_ very good friends. Today Lucien was just being…"

Despite his daughter's indignation, Maurice smiled. "You can't put another name to it, can you? Belle, I was a young man in love once. I know what it looks like."

Belle cut a piece of mutton and put it in her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully for a time—as much because it was mutton as because she was lost in thought—swallowed, and remained silent. She picked up the half-eaten slice of bread.

Maurice watched her shrewdly. "You're not actually thinking about what I said, are you?"

"No." Belle assured him loftily, earning a laugh from her father.

"I wish you would," he told her. "If you truly value your friendship, you ought to at least realize what's wrong with it." Standing, he kissed Belle on the forehead and retreated to his room.

Soon afterwards, Belle was lying on her own bed in the dark, but she couldn't sleep. She tried to sleep on her back, but she felt as confined as if she lay in a casket. Startled by the morbid thought, she rolled over onto her stomach—which made her neck hurt as she twisted her head from side to side. Then, she moved back onto her side. From there, she had a perfect view of Lucien's book of stories, resting on her bedside table.

"Argh!" Belle found that lying on her other side provided her with a view of the bedroom wall. With such a bland expanse before her, it was easier to think calmly about things.

For most of the afternoon and all evening, Belle had been angry enough to punch something, like a boy brawling in the street. It was absolutely maddening that, not only had the hunchback's humiliation been a heartbreaking display of human cruelty, but as if to add insult to injury, Belle could hardly focus, now, on the earlier, happy events of the day.

She now realized guiltily that she had, in fact, rather wanted to punch Lucien. But nothing that had happened that afternoon was his fault, was it? Belle made a face at herself. It wasn't like her to be so thoughtless. So impractical. So unappreciative of her best friend.

She was Lucien's best friend, too. Though she had been forced to face the possibility that he cared about her romantically, Belle refused to dwell on the effect it might have on their friendship. Instead, she blushed with shame, recalling every word of their argument with painful clarity. The sooner she apologized, she resolved sheepishly, the better.

.:..:..:.

The next morning after breakfast, Belle wrapped herself in a shawl against the continuing rain. Taking a deep breath, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the threshold—

"Ow!"

"Belle?"

"_Lucien_? What are you doing here?"

Lucien looked uncomfortable. "I came to apologize for my behavior yesterday. It was…completely ungentlemanly, and I acted like I was your father and not your friend. I was out of place, and I'm sorry." Though Lucien, too, seemed to have undergone a parental lecture, his sincerity was unmistakable.

"I have something to be sorry about, too," Belle protested. "I was very upset about what we saw, yesterday. I still am. But today I know better than to lash out at you. And, yes," her eyes twinkled, "perhaps you _were_ a little over-protective of me, but then we're such close friends. If I thought you were being foolish, or you were in danger, I'd try to do something about it, too."

"I know," said Lucien ruefully, remembering several past occurrences. "You've always been quick to tell me when I'm being a fool."

"Aren't brothers and sisters bound to tease each other mercilessly?" Belle asked. "I have known you so long, I think of you as an older brother."

It was a tactful note to strike; but Lucien looked as though he considered it merciless indeed. Still, he only smiled down at Belle and said, "Would you like to come over? My mother just baked a pie."

"Of course," said Belle.


End file.
